


All Grief to Refrain

by vojir



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-01 00:29:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1038199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vojir/pseuds/vojir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An explanation of sorts, of the nature of things. From Castiel's perspective -- how he changes, how the Winchesters change him, how the universe has a hand in all things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

It all started long ago, when the universe had that new-car smell and the gods were still wrinkling their noses and complaining of headaches. It was a tiny seed, tinier even than a seed of doubt. It planted itself in the heart of every god, and from it humanity was born.

Each human contains a small part of this seed, which is why each human is so unique and yet, in many respects, the same as every other. This tiny bit of the universe is born in our hearts alongside us, and as we grow up it’s pumped through our body and it spreads thinner and thinner until it reaches our very extremities and we die. Not always literally, of course: the death of a human can be an extremely quiet, wholly unnoticed event. The word zombie should be used, in the gods’ opinions, not for the dead who have risen but for the dead who never fall.

The seed of the universe manifests itself in different ways. For some, it’s a tiny anxiety right in the center of their chest: it’s always there, and they can never quite tell exactly why they feel the deep sadness they do. Those sorts of people are the ones who most often feels the deep navy blue embrace of the universe, because they are the ones who most often notice the empty sadness of the seed within them.

Others bury their sadness in meaningless tasks and empty words, drowning the seeds influence in a haze of invented goals. They invest heavily in the assigned importance of trivial things, and the saddest people look at them and wonder how they do it.

In the beginning, the universe was not an entirely sad place. But as with all things, as the universe grew, so its heartbeat spread the seed of its birth throughout its veins. And the gods scattered across the infinite galaxies, and the center of the universe was lost in its vastness.

The universe grew lonely.

Sometimes, in the endless night, the universe sang lullabies to itself, in the language the gods used to speak. The language of the nothing that came before, of the void without time. Over the years, as good a memory as it had, the universe forgot the lullabies and slowly went silent.

Thus is the inherent sadness of the universe.


	2. Icarus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning.

Castiel was many thousands of years old before the current apocalypse rolled around. He was a fairly young angel, as angels go: he had known Lucifer as a brother, but only briefly, and his chief concern for humanity was not their well-being but their continuing adherence to the path that Fate had so carefully laid for them. Part of being an angel is having an exceptionally long memory coupled with the ability to travel through time and space at will. Most angels, in their infinite wisdom, see history as a collection of preordained events, marching one after another. They look left and right and see their brothers-in-arms alongside them, stepping forward along with the years. They don’t think about the humans. Castiel certainly never thought about the humans.

He watched. That was his job. He watched the humans scatter across their relatively tiny globe, and he observed their petty wars and feeble attempts at overcoming the miniscule seed of the universe that resided inside each of them. In time, he saw the Cupid who was assigned John and Mary Winchester. He saw the birth of Dean, the carefree existence he led for four years. He saw newborn Sam, with his disgusting wrinkled face and disproportionate body. He saw John explain to Dean about the responsibility of being an older brother. He saw the demon with the yellow eyes fulfill his role in the future of the Winchesters. He saw the path laid out before each of them. He didn’t question it.

And then Dean went to Hell. Which wasn’t exactly a surprise, because the brothers would sacrifice everything for each other, especially once John died. But it was the first time Castiel felt a twinge of something in his chest, where the miniscule piece of the universe nestled between his wings. He wondered why they let him rot. For four months – forty years.

Why they let him break.

“Who are you?” Dean asks, and Castiel has to hold back a small smile as he spreads his wings in the falling sparks of the broken lights. He had always liked the effect that his power had on humans. The awe-stricken expression never quite got old.

“My name is Castiel,” he says. “I’m the one who gripped you tight and pulled you from Perdition.”


	3. Absolution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of all things.

Before time, even, there is death.

Science and the supernatural seem at odds on most occasions, but on this they agree: before the universe, there was another. Before time, there was death.

The universe and time were born alongside each other, one a shifting, malleable mass, the other a long and tangled ball of lines. Neither knew which was the other; they only knew of themselves. The mass expanded. The lines outstretched. They grew together, and yet apart; the goal of their lives is infinity, and it takes such a long while to achieve that. 

The universe bore the gods, and the stars, and the galaxies; time bore consciousness, and language, and love. One cannot exist without the other. Not in the way that existence _is_. 

Time is the first to notice its mortality. First, it notices the mortality of its constituents; the lines that end, whether short or long, whether thick or thin, whether meandering or straight, stop abruptly and do not continue, no matter how many lines go on without them. Next, it notices that all the lines end, eventually. It creeps out to the edges of its being, to the edges of the nearly infinite mass that surrounds it, and peers at the frayed ends of itself. 

It wants to speak to the only other being it can, for the first time in its long existence, but it soon discovers the muteness of the universe. It finds that, in its near-infinity, the universe has resorted to huddling in the small parts of itself, where the worlds are not so loud and the stars are not so bright. The universe has not the luxury of knowing its own ending. 

Perhaps it is not a luxury, time muses. 

Death looks on, impartial, unending. Existence is not a word that applies to him – language is not something that can describe him. He is everywhere at once. He is the end of all things. 

He is absolute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> at some point when dean is talking to death, death mentions being older than god and i -- i'm just trying to make some sense of that, in a way i can articulate.


End file.
